Iconography

Please join me for a moment in mourning the passing of the pleasantly whimsical icons of Weather Underground. This has been my go-to site for weather information for the past several years, partly because it’s an easy-to-navigate site with good information, but also partly because I loved their weather icons. I apologize for the quality of this photo, which is the icon for “Sunny” or “Clear” – maybe it’s because of the originals’ small size, but Blogger makes them all distorted. But look at that happy face! That’s just the way a sunny day makes you feel. You can look at the whole lineup here, for as long as WU has them up. Just look at the icon for wind! And the night-time icons – you gotta love that crescent moon!Their new icons are, to be honest, quite dull. This is the new icon for “Sunny.” A glowing hot ball – yay. It could be the yolk of an egg for all we know. I suppose it’s a no-frills, no-nonsense way of getting the information out, but it’s the sort of thing I expect from The Weather Channel – boring, corporate and unimaginative.